Reviews

Justice League Heroes

The Justice League is fighting evil, and they need your help. Make sure to bring a friend.

Good

Pros:

A diverse mix of Justice League heroes to play with, each with customizable powers; co-op play is lots of fun; RPG elements give you an incentive to play through the game with multiple character choices.

Cons:

Co-op works much better than the single player game, particularly during boss fights, where the AI can sometimes get in the way of strategy; flight is too slow; draw-in issues in one level.

The Justice League of America has existed since the 1960s, and has been combating world-threatening villains for years, teaming up to take on the threats that even Batman and Superman can't handle alone. While comic books have been plodding along for all these years, with high points like Frank Miller's Dark Knight at the peak of the medium's storytelling possibilities, it's been the super heroic transition to other entertainment mediums that has brought the capes and costumes to the forefront of the public eye. The Justice League animated series is just one example, and for many gamers, it will be the reason why they are interested in Snowblind and Warner Bros. Interactive's latest release, Justice League Heroes, for the Xbox and PS2.

The story, enabled by writer/producer Dwayne McDuffie, focuses on a struggle between our intrepid heroes and a rogues gallery of costumed (and hirsute) misfits, championed by that most nefarious of villains, Brainiac. You'll have frequent challenging boss fights, broken up by cut scenes that bring us inside the JLA Watchtower, and show us just how this team of superhumans handle things when crisis strikes.

Justice League Heroes puts you in control of two superheroes during each mission, with the lineup changing based on the upcoming challenge. Infiltration missions, for instance, will take Batman and a partner into enemy strongholds, while the Martian Manhunter and Superman battle with intergalactic threats on the surface of Mars. Flying heroes, like Superman and Wonder Woman will have their own dedicated aerial missions as well, which is nice in theory, but occasionally bothersome due to the characters' slow movement speed while in the air. This buddy-system style of gameplay means that as a player, you'll be trying to mix and match super power combinations in order to best deal with threats, and learning how to swap between characters on the fly, while also letting the adjustable AI handle things on its own when appropriate.

When customizing your character, you'll have options that will allow you to make up for each character's deficiencies. Let's take Batman, for example. His base abilities aren't off-the-charts like Superman's, so he'll generally deal far less melee damage with basic attacks, and he doesn't have the health to soak up as much damage. Instead, Batman works well in other ways. His flash bomb, for instance, is one of the game's only instant area-effect stuns, disabling enemies temporarily, allowing you to set up your attacks. On a vulnerable opponent, Batman can unleash his Dark Knight hand-to-hand combo, which has a very high chance to cause critical hits, thus allowing his damage output to be on par with Superman's more powerful blows.

As the game begins, you'll be forced to play with specific characters, but as the game progresses, you'll be able to choose between characters of your choosing, even bringing in unlockable characters that aren't in the default roster. Unlockable characters like Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Huntress aren't palette-swapped versions of existing characters, instead featuring their own unique attacks, powers, and specialties. Additional costumes can be unlocked, and these have unique animations, but the powers remain largely the same. You can unlock new versions of Green Lantern and some new Batman costumes, for instance, but aside from aesthetic tweaks, they'll play very much like the default versions, albeit with new animations. And once you unlock the alternate costumes for pre-leveled characters, like the Infiltrator Suit for Batman, or the older Kal-L, the Earth-2 Golden Age Superman with the gray at the temples look, you can swap them in without any trouble at the mission start screen, and the power upgrades you previously purchased carry over. There's an incentive for playing with these alternate costumes as well, with some having more health or energy than others, or being able to do more combo damage or have a higher chance of landing critical strikes.